The dead elms stand like martyrs,
This poem is reproduced with the kind permission of the author (and
Like tombstones dark and drear:
Like loved ones deep in mourning,
With shocks of greying hair.
The sun dies with a whimper,
Well beaten by the night;
And out across the hillside,
A farmstead sheds a light.
The daylight’s dying embers
Are less now than a spark;
A greyer tone the white takes on,
For cometh now the dark.
The oaks meet with the skyline
And heavy seems their sighs,
The ditches and the ridges,
Now blend in with the skies.
The cornfields are so peaceful,
Beneath the winter sheet,
And grow in strength for harvest;
The barley and the wheat.
This earth has much to offer
The rich man and the poor,
For soon will rise the morning
And soon will wake the thaw.
Hepworth resident), Bernard Howlett, Breckland Poet, from his book
“Pages of Time”, ISBN 978-0-9559311-3-0
